


Emerald Tries to do a Puzzle

by Vex_ation



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Gen, Profanity, Puzzles, a singular sex joke, more or less based on true events, nightmare children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23237890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vex_ation/pseuds/Vex_ation
Summary: The nuggets had long since been devoured. Crystal was in tears. Diet Coke and ketchup were dripping off the walls. Emerald was pretty sure Ruby clawed Sapphire’s eyes out over a solitary french fry. And yet, somehow, they were weren’t done with this stupid fucking puzzle.
Relationships: Emerald & Crystal (Pokemon), Sibling Relationship - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25
Collections: Spe Character Studies





	Emerald Tries to do a Puzzle

It had already been three hours. The rain pounded on the windows, lightning illuminated the sky, and the lights had already flickered overheard like a poltergeist about a dozen times before the power finally kicked the bucket. This tropical storm had already been raging for three entire hours, and even still, Emerald was no closer to finishing this technicolor nightmare of a puzzle than when he started. He hated everything about it, but he was nothing if not a competitive, stubborn fool, and therefore he would sit here and smack pieces together until inevitably this thing was complete or he started bleeding from his eyes. Perhaps both. 

Grumbling, Emerald mashed pieces together under the cover of darkness, hearing the chug of the generator as he continued on his quest. He glanced at the mountain of pieces on either side of him, realizing that even though he was almost done with the border, he still had to tackle the rest of the puzzle, and it seemed the non-edge pieces would not be as merciful. Finding a piece and realizing that though it  _ should  _ have fit, it somehow didn’t, Emerald snarled and prepared himself to flip the table in rage. He was going to grow six inches by the time he finished the damn thing if he kept it up at this sorry rate. 

“Need some help?” came a voice from behind him. Had it been anyone else, Emerald would have snapped, readying his entire arsenal of snark and sass for whatever blind and condescending worm had dared to ask him if he needed  _ help _ . However, the voice belonged to Crystal, and snapping at Crystal was about equivalent in Emerald’s mind to snapping at Rayquaza-- it may not kill him physically, but the emotional toll? He could only imagine. She looked exhausted, no doubt 12 bedtime stories deep into trying to help the orphans fall asleep. Her hair was down, she was wearing one of Gold’s old t-shirts, and she looked like she hadn’t seen sleep in years. She probably hadn’t. Emerald just mumbled something under his breath to hide the fact that yes, he absolutely did need help (but surely wasn’t going to admit it) and allowed Cyrstal to sit down across from him. She cupped her head in her hand, tapping the table with her fingers and studying the pieces. They could do this together… probably. 

As Emerald sighed and slumped onto the table, Crystal set some candles, giving the entire room a relaxing and mellow atmosphere. Just her very presence silenced Emerald’s grumbling in his throat. He was not content to act like anything less than a saint as long as she was here; she was his big sister and he was not about to act like a spoiled child any time she was watching. And so they puzzled in silence. Crystal was miraculously no better at it than he was, and it honestly made Emerald feel the tiniest bit better that even she, master of children’s games, tamer of legendary pokemon, and the only person powerful to deal with Professor Oak at five oclock in the morning, was thoroughly stumped by this puzzle. She was bested! Bamboozled! Befuddled! Emerald was positively loving it, even if it meant this puzzle was never going to be completed. 

The rain pounded relentlessly on the windows as the candlelight shone its cozy glow on Crystal’s increasing annoyance. She could catch gods but was defeated by a mere 1000 piece puzzle. This was blasphemy. Hoenn’s cheerful and poorly painted scenery mocked her, each edge knowing it fit perfectly somewhere, if only she were clever enough to figure out where. Emerald watched her out of the corner of her eye while trying to distinguish between two puzzle pieces that were definitely identical no matter what the box said. As time went on, Crystal began to look a little frustrated.

“Don’t force the pieces,” she said to Emerald, who promptly ignored her. He had put both his real and mechanical hands to work, his eyes scanning for similar shapes and patterns and working from there. None of the pieces he had found were a perfect fit, but it had to be close enough. Surely that was what counted? 

He knew better, but if it meant this puzzle would be finished faster, so be it. With Crystal’s help, they had transitioned from a Macargo’s pace to a Turtwig’s pace, and that was something he could live with. By the time the storm was over, they would definitely be done, and the scenery of the Hoenn region would unfold in oh so many puzzle pieces before their very eyes. This was, of course, barring the interruption of anyone else. 

Naturally, just as Crystal gave a small ‘aha!’ and clipped together the last of the edge pieces, the door slammed open with a thunderous bang and a soaking wet, shadowy figure charged into Emerald and Crystal's shared living room howling like a wild animal. Emerald remembered an earlier phone call and sighed. Of course she was here  _ now _ . 

“I GOT MCDONALD’S!” the beast shouted, and though Crystal winced in surprise, Emerald was entirely unfazed. 

“Sapphire, I left you towels at the door for a reason. Use em.”

The girl in question pouted, shaking water droplets from her hair like a Rockruff and throwing the soggy bags on the counter in anger. Sapphire messily scrubbed her hair and face with the towel, not bothering to change out of her wet clothes or shoes and tracking rainwater all over the floor. A few seconds behind her Ruby ran inside, muttering endless complaints and letting out a shrill cry of alarm when Sapphire threw her wet towel onto his face and caused him to drop his umbrella. 

“This is very much unwelcome,” he pouted. “I’m all wet and I’m gonna be sticky and, oh after having to deal with your dreadful driving…”

“Shut up and drink your girly milkshake, ya pansy,” Sapphire grumbled. 

“For the last time,” Ruby growled, “there is nothing girly about strawberry— and you have one too!” 

“Yeah yeah, whatever.”

“Both of you shut up, I’m trying to do a puzzle,” Emerald snapped. Both of his friends stared at him judgmentally. 

“That’s lame…  _ Jynx _ !” they shouted in unison before conceding and moving towards the bags on the table. Before they could grab them, however, Emerald had used his mechanical arms to snatch all the assorted bags to his side of the table, where he held them in his arms with the greed and ferocity of a Salamence. 

“Help me with the puzzle and I will consider relinquishing the nuggets,” Emerald said as he propped a fry in his mouth. 

“Oh no WAY!” Sapphire pouted. 

“Have I not suffered enough having to deal with Sapphire’s driving all the way here?!” Ruby lamented. 

Even still, the two of them sighed and sat down at either side of Emerald, glancing over at the wet bags he guarded while trying to piece everything together. Ruby, who had luckily been holding the drinks, passed them out to everyone— strawberry milkshakes for him and Sapphire, a large Diet Coke for Crystal, and an Oreo McFlurry for Emerald, who was trying to devour it before Crystal inevitably stopped him. Either she was so engrossed with the puzzle or beyond the point of caring no one knew, but she allowed Emerald to scarf down his body weight in ice cream regardless. 

Somehow, even with two extra people and the promise of nuggets and fries at the end of it all, the puzzle wasn’t going any faster. 

”I mean, either we’re really bad at this or the box is wrong because these edges don’t really match up wi—  _ Emerald I already told you those pieces don’t fit, stop forcing it, _ ” Crystal snarled.

Emerald yelped in surprise and sheepishly dropped the pieces he was holding, looking around for other pieces to complete the tree he was working on. Sapphire and Ruby were still bickering about whether shapes or colors were more vital for piece-matching, and ended up not being able to put anything together even after 15 minutes. Emerald stole a nugget in retaliation while they weren’t paying attention. This was the price for failure.

Any gain in speed Emerald had gained from Crystal’s assistance was immediately undone by Ruby and Sapphire, who bickered and nagged about the proper way to do a puzzle despite the fact that neither of them were helping at all. 

“Sapphire, just because the pieces have similar edges doesn’t mean they fit-- this one is teal and this one is turquoise and those do not blend together like that, those pieces cannot  _ possibly _ match.”

“What the hell is the difference between teal and turquoise?”

“One is bluish green and the other is greenish blue; we’ve been over this!! Now give that to me, that piece clearly does  _ not _ fit there.”

Crystal turned to Emerald, as if to ask ‘do they do this all the time?’. Emerald just sighed and rested his head on the table. He nodded solemnly, not able to focus enough to do much of anything until the two of them brought their volumes down. It was actually kind of miraculous that no one had woken up any of the kids yet. For Crystal’s sake, Emerald hoped it would stay that way. He tried to zone out for a bit, but eventually his attention turned right back around to Idiot 1 and Idiot 2, who were still duking it out about colors and shapes. This time, Sapphire was the one on the attack. 

“Oh, and you think my approach is bad? What are you doing; this  _ clearly _ doesn’t fit! I don’t care if the colors match, the edges are obviously super different.”

Trying to ignore her, Ruby shielded his pieces from her prying eyes and continued at his work, pressing pieces together and grumbling. 

“It doesn’t fit!!” Sapphire shrieked. “That’s the wrong hole, you can’t just shove it in there like that!”

“I can and I will,” Ruby asserted. 

“Maybe that’s why you can’t get laid,” Emerald snarked, staring at the two of them from between his fingers. Ruby went scarlet as Sapphire, also trying to disguise her flushed cheeks, burst into ridiculous peals of laughter. 

“I-- you… you can’t-- NO!” Ruby shouted, shaking his head as though to force the blood rising to his cheeks to just quit it already. Sapphire was pounding the table as she giggled, even after Ruby smacked her arm. As if on cue, the playful teasing twisted into another round of bickering between the two of them. Perhaps it was the frequency of Ruby’s nagging or the roughness of Sapphire’s tone, but it was getting old pretty quickly. Maybe it was the rain, but they were arguing far more than usual. Crystal looked bored enough to leave and Emerald was getting sick of Ruby and Sapphire’s shenanigans. 

“If the two of you can’t learn to be quiet I’m going to destroy this stupid puzzle and force you to watch.”

“You wouldn’t do that to all our hard work like that, would you?!” Ruby asked incredulously.

“You haven’t helped at all, so yes! Yes I would!” Emerald asserted. Crystal took another long sip of her soda. 

“Emerald, quit having a tantrum. Just leave them alone.”

“ _ Crystal _ !” Emerald bemoaned, thoroughly embarrassed in front of his friends and mourning the loss of his good reputation. As Ruby and Sapphire laughed at him, he shook his fist in their direction and threatened to flip the table once again. Crystal left to get some more ice as the Hoenn trio bickered, arriving again to see Emerald working on the puzzle more angrily than before and Ruby and Sapphire at least attempting to help. They began to argue only 45 seconds later, but it was that almost-minute of silence that counted. 

“Are you just irritable because it’s raining and your clothes got wet?” Sapphire snarked. Ruby rolled his eyes. 

“Don’t take your anger out on me, it’s not my fault you smell like a wet Mightyena,” he haughtily proclaimed. Sapphire went red as a Tamato, sputtering nonsense and blushing like mad before finally slamming her fist on the table and shouting “oh  _ THAT’S it _ .”

The force of her punch managed to land perfectly on a package of ketchup, which burst directly into Emerald’s face. Sapphire turned to him, horrified, as Ruby collapsed on the table in hysterics. Naturally, Ruby’s oh-so-graceful movements also caused problems, as he elbowed Crystal’s drink off the table in his fit of laughter, causing her to instinctively kick it like a pokeball and sending Diet Coke splashing over everything in the room. As ketchup and Diet coke ran in sticky rivulets down Emerald’s face, he silently stood up, eyes closed, and reached into his pocket. Ruby was the first to apologize. 

“Rald… uh… I’m sorry, I took that way too far, I promise I won’t do something like that again, I--”

He was cut off by Emerald whipping his E-shooter from his pocket with a roar, pointing it at his companions as they all leapt to their feet and sprinted away. Sapphire hoisted Ruby over her shoulders by the collar, throwing open a window and tossing him out like a sack of flour before diving out after him (despite the fact that they had a door less than 15 feet away). They landed in the bushes and Emerald didn’t feel bad one bit. He slammed the window shut right in their faces, waving his gun around and commanding that they “STAY OUT” as he grumpily walked back to the living room (but not before locking the doors and windows, of course). 

Crystal just finished wiping the soda off her leg when he got back, wordlessly passing him a towel. 

“Thanks Crys,” he muttered. 

“No worries,” she replied. They stared at the table in silence for a moment before she finally declared “this puzzle sucks.”

“Wanna quit?” Emerald asked. Crystal sighed, a victim of her own persistence. 

“No way.”

“Alright cool, let’s finish this bitch.”

Brother and sister worked in near complete silence, the endless storm a steady beat that was interrupted only by Ruby and Sapphire’s occasional screeching or thumping as they tried to break into the house. It brought the two siblings the tiniest amount of joy to hear them scream and struggle in vain, especially when Ruby fell off the roof that one time. This house was an impenetrable fortress that no one could break into, not even that dream team. Emerald knew full well how powerful they were when they joined forces, so to see even those two stumped by a locked window brought him endless entertainment. 

Perhaps they were making up for lost time, but the puzzle seemed to be going faster now. Trees, pokemon, grasslands, they all became clear as little scenes were built from puzzle pieces. This was actually coming together, and even though Emerald could feel ketchup drying on his eyebrow still, he couldn’t bring himself to be all that upset. They were 60% done, and that was way better than the 30% he had been 2 hours ago. Hooray for progress. 

The doorbell rang. As Emerald glanced back at Crystal and went to open the door, he realized that it was quiet. Too quiet. Emerald sighed. He knew what would happen if he opened the door. Perhaps they had suffered enough. Quickly retrieving the last box of still hot french fries from the bag, Emerald opened the door. Lightning flashed as the door swung open, revealing two sad and lonely figures soaking wet and pouting in the rain. Emerald stared at them as they looked down at him, rainwater pooling at their feet. He threw the french fries at the rain-soaked duo and slammed the door before they had a chance to beg for forgiveness. He was puzzling, there was no time for mercy. 

As Emerald walked back to the puzzle table, he heard screams outside like dying Nickits. Evidently the two of them were fighting over the last of the salty, starchy goodness like rabid Pokemon. If they wanted to do that, fine. When he returned, he found Crystal crying. Her face was in her hands, and even though they were close to being done, the puzzle’s final mysteries eluded them still.   
“Why are they all green? Why not blue or red or purple?” she cried, drunk off exhaustion and way too much Diet Coke. 

“Uh…”

“I can only handle so much Emerald,” she groaned. Emerald sat down and put his head in his hands as the unmistakable thump of Sapphire launching Ruby against the wall shook the house to its very foundations. The nuggets had long since been devoured. Crystal was in tears. Diet Coke and ketchup were dripping off the walls. Emerald was pretty sure Ruby clawed Sapphire’s eyes out over a solitary french fry. And yet, somehow, they were weren’t done with this stupid fucking puzzle.

Hours seemed to tick by. Emerald got a text on his phone from Ruby complaining that they were retreating to their secret base but that Emerald owed him a new hat and fresh chicken nuggets. Emerald didn’t really care: they had ruined his evening and this is what they deserved, best friends or not. He was still slowly picking apart pieces that Ruby and Sapphire had mushed haphazardly together. For all their talk about colors and shapes and proper puzzle etiquette, they were pretty terrible at actually doing anything useful. 

“Why did they put the pieces together like that?” Crystal asked. 

“They’re being creative,” Emerald replied. 

“I… no! There is no creativity in puzzles! That’s not how any of this works!” 

Emerald just shrugged. He knew that, but were Ruby and Sapphire apt to listen? Not really. As minutes turned to hours, they snapped pieces together in silence. The candle burned out, the thunder rumbled, and finally, miraculously, after what felt like years trapped inside: it was done. There was only one problem. 

Emerald blinked. Crystal stared. There was a hole. It was small, almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but there was still a hole and a suspicious lack of puzzle pieces. 

“There’s a piece missing,” Crystal said softly. 

The puzzle was missing a piece. All that work, all those hours, and the puzzle was missing a piece. The puzzle was impossible to finish, because it was  _ missing a piece _ . None of their hard work mattered. The storm raged mercilessly outside.

The universe just  _ loved _ to mock him. 

Instinctively, Emerald grabbed the underside of the board. Crystal watched as, in a rage, he flipped the entire board over. The puzzle shattered into a million pieces, pieces of cardboard flying in all directions as chunks of poorly painted Hoennian scenery shattered into tiny shards of ombre before their eyes. Everything they had done was erased in this fit of anger, a beautiful cascade of destruction illuminated only by the fading candlelight and flashes of lightning. The storm outside could not match the fury in Emerald’s eyes as he slaughtered the puzzle before him. Crystal watched, too exhausted to care and too mortified to do anything other than stare. As the last of the pieces clattered to the floor and lay at his feet, Emerald threw his hands up in exasperation. 

“Fuck this.”


End file.
